Category: Autumnal

I practically missed Labor Day because I was canning ~32 quarts of tomato sauce and salsa, a well over 12 hour endeavor. I’m still not ready to switch over into fall though, so let’s hang onto summer a little longer with a few more book tour stops, shall we?

9/5

Divine Magazine: In which we discuss Abby’s home life and some books that made me think differently about historical fiction as a genre.

Havan Fellows: Fun, rapid fire questions including the show I’m currently binge watching and the 2 biggest crushes I had in the 90s.

9/6

Alpha Book Club: In which we delve into what my goals were for Sideshow and whether or not I think I accomplished them.

I am incredibly excited today because the first novella in the Season of the Witch series, Jaclyn of the Lantern is available on Smashwords.

Jaclyn of the Lantern started as a small idea. A podcast that I love and recommend to all history fans (The British History Podcast) discussed the mythological background for pumpkin/turnip carving on Halloween. I was fascinated and immediately began working on a short story using this myth. However, as things tend to go for my writing, the original idea grew and developed into something new and different.

Jaclyn is doing well for herself, she owns an occult tea shoppe and has an adorable (and tremendously fat) cat named Butterscotch. She’s also a witch. When her long separated mother and father arrive one October to battle out a family secret, Jaclyn realizes what her true calling is and its not what either of her parents suspect.

I am excited to share this novella with you. It’s been a work of passion and sudden inspiration. I have to admit such inspiration one of my favorite things as a writer: when an idea takes hold of you and refuses to let go until it has been completed.

Jaclyn of the Lantern is a short novella (sometimes referred to as a novelette), around 10,000 words, and is perfect for quick Halloween reading. It’s also the first in a series: Season of the Witch. The second, Bethany’s Broomsticks, should be available in early January.

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens…
-Edgar Allen Poe Fall of the House of User

We’re getting in to my favorite season now. There’s a crispness in the mornings. Though…there has been since about mid-August, but I can pretend.

My first public reading is on Friday night and I am beyond panicked about this. I haven’t read poetry out loud since high school, which, well, we’ll just say was long enough ago to make me a little rusty. I have chosen a somewhat longer selection than my usual poetry that is more of a dialogue between my father and myself, but I am unsure about the protocol regarding this, and may switch to something more indicative of my style (and also a bit less prose in nature) after going through my files, as I intend to do later today.

That’s going to be messy as well. Some of the pieces in there haven’t seen the light of day in almost a decade…and with good reason.

There is power in youthful self-indulgent poetry though. I won’t deny that. Where would be be literarily without it?